Tuesday 21 March 2017

Fuses ...

Enjoying the Spring sunshine this morning, my daydreams were rudely interrupted by Ann coming out to tell me that our freezer was no longer working. Fortunately it was nowhere near full so the "disaster" was not as bad as it might have been. We emptied the freezer, and moved stuff to our fridge.

Now my friend Savvas always makes fun of me as he says I am not a practical man. There is, I admit, an element of truth to this so I set out to find the fault. The incentive of not having to go out and buy a new freezer was a spur indeed. I checked the socket it was plugged into and that was fine. We moved the freezer out from the wall and had a look at the plug. It was one of those "sealed for life" ones but ... the fuse was visible, and with a small amount of persuasion I was able to remove it. On inspection it was fine but we replaced it and our freezer sprang into life. GCE "O" level physics has never been so valuable. For someone who has always telephoned a man to come and sort things out in his UK existence, this was a first and a triumph. Happy days ...

And, my goodness, don't we need some happy days with the lunatics running UK Plc deciding to trigger Article 50. I see that the people of Cornwall have finally woken up and smelled the coffee. Having voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, the people have realised that this will mean an end to the grants and general agricultural funding on which the county relies. The Welsh have also seen the light dawn, and many of  "the people have spoken", "move on" and "suck it up" brigade will increasingly rue the day they decided to destroy the UK's financial future, and possibly cause the breakup of our country.

However the clocks go forward this weekend, and the weather is set fair. The Six Nations' Rugby Championship is over (and what a disappointing weekend that was) but the Grand Prix season is about to begin. I wonder how long it will be before we are able to swim in the pool?

Saturday 11 March 2017

Coptic Storms?

I suppose people are equally divided when it comes to whether Coptic Storms, and thus the Coptic Calendar, are a reality or are coincidental here in Cyprus. Thursday saw the arrival of El Hossum, the equinox gale which is apparently meant to last for eight days. Clouds of dust were very apparent on Thurdsay and Friday, and this morning we woke up to what (according to Ann) looked like the set for a zombie apocalypse.

Garden furniture everywhere, masses of debris in and around the pool and our heavy-duty car port tarpaulin in shreds ... all that was missing were the walking dead. Thunder and lightning, and seeming inches of rain, and the believability of the Coptic Storm Calendar was becoming more and more real. We remember back to our first year here, when we had been told about the Coptic Storms. One afternoon, I think it must have been in November, and the temperature literally shot up by seven or eight degrees within a few minutes, the skies darkened and the wind swirled from every conceivable direction. We watched the live weather feed from the Argaka weather station, and the wind changing direction every few seconds and gusting to 90 kph. The only thing we could do was shut the curtains and drink some wine.

On a more parochial note we have been enjoying the Six Nations' Championship on television. Side-bets on the outcome of each weekend's matches were going in my direction until Emgland played against Italy and the infamous "ruckgate" controversy. I had England to win by at least sixty points, whilst Ann was much more measured and had England to win by a much more conservative amount. Well, and it hurts to say this, she was right and I was wrong. If I ever hear the end of that ...

Our friend Jill has been quite ill with cellulitis, and it is nothing to do with having excess cellulose. We went to see her on Thursday in hospital in Paphos, and she was not in a good way. She had been taken from the private clinic in Polis by ambulance immediately she was examined and has been on intravenous antibiotics since. Her leg was badly swollen and discoloured and we felt very sorry for her. When she is released from hospital she will be out of action for some time, which will give John the opportunity to learn how the oven, microwave and washing machine work. Time will tell how well he copes ...